


Lover, what have you become?

by Arriva



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Also takes place in the Half-Life universe, Angst, Attempted Suicide, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, Gen, I literally forgot the cores exist so just imagine they're somewhere in this, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Inspired by Hadestown, selectively mute chell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:29:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27588163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arriva/pseuds/Arriva
Summary: Six months on the surface.Six months below.That is GLaDOS and Chell's arrangement. Until one of them gets greedy.
Relationships: Chell & Doug Rattmann, Chell/GLaDOS
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	Lover, what have you become?

**Author's Note:**

> Fic is inspired by this [this amazing fanart](https://zaraegis.tumblr.com/post/172869940959/and-wasnt-it-electrifying-when-i-made-the-neon)!

They have a certain agreement.

GLaDOS needs a test subject. Chell happens to be the only test subject that's managed to stay alive. Chell needs the surface. Without the warmth of the sun and the crispness of fresh air, Chell wilts. Like a flower, GLaDOS observes later on into their arrangement. Chell never voices this need, but GLaDOS knows. She is the most advanced AI in all of creation; of course she sees the want in Chell's eyes for the earth above. She sees Chell's mind drift in the test chamber, her brow creased and her movements less calculated. GLaDOS _cannot_ have her best test subject getting sloppy.

Luckily, GLaDOS is not a monster. She's highly capable of generosity. So she offers Chell a deal.

For six months, Chell may walk the surface. 

But for the other six months, Chell belongs to _her_.

Her best test subject. Her most prized flower. She would weather six months of Chell's absence for six months of Chell at her smartest and most attentive.

That is the arrangement, and that is the one Chell agrees to that fated day. The day something in their dynamic shifts. It is the first time GLaDOS realizes she has _pleased_ Chell. Furthermore, GLaDOS realizes that she would very much like to please her again.

Six months go by. For Chell, this is spring and summer. For GLaDOS, where the sun never reaches and the warm air never permeates her facility, it is just time. GLaDOS fills this time creating more tests for her.

Chell returns at the end of summer with more spring in her step than ever before. She breezes through GLaDOS' tests with astonishing efficiency and for the first time realizes how much she enjoys testing. She enjoys the challenge, the risks even. Most of all, she enjoys the contented hum that emits from GLaDOS at the end of the test track. This is when Chell realizes that she has _pleased_ GLaDOS. And she too would very much like to please her again.

They spend this period finding all sorts of ways to please each other. They are two of the sharpest minds in the world, and they are incredibly adept at coming up with new ideas. Chell tests, GLaDOS creates more tests for her, and when Chell does exceptionally well (and quite often she does exceptionally well), GLaDOS rewards her. Some of the rewards are more... physical than others. Their relationship is far from conventional, but six months is a long time for GLaDOS work out how to best please her lover. Exactly six months Chell lives on the surface, then exactly six months later GLaDOS sends her two most trusted robots to collect her. She is never late. She is never early.

Chell always returns through a shed in a wheat field and rides down an elevator straight to her chamber. She brings with her food and trinkets and flowers. She places the flowers in GLaDOS' chassis and signs animatedly about her time on the surface. The flowers always die, but GLaDOS literally does not have the heart to tell this to Chell. It makes Chell happy. Chell tests better when she is happy.

For six months, Chell is blissfully, exclusively hers. 

Neither of them know it at the time, but this will be the happiest point of their relationship.

Then another human arrives. 

Somewhere in their eighth or ninth year together (keeping track of the years is harder when GLaDOS has so many ways of prolonging Chell's youth and vitality), he comes like a storm, noisy and inevitable. He bangs on the door to the shed, screaming to be let in, that he'll "do anything." Chell is mid-way through a test when GLaDOS suddenly pulls her out and into the main chamber.

GLaDOS wants to kill him. A human showing up out of nowhere? He must be here to steal valuable Aperture Science technology. But Chell recognizes him. He is from the ramshackle town just a few miles past the wheat field. Chell convinces, more begs really, for GLaDOS to hear him out.

GLaDOS brings him down to her chamber. He trembles, his clothes hanging loosely off his frame. He explains that he is cold. He has no food. Worst of all, he was attacked. What Chell has failed to tell GLaDOS are the dangers that lurk on the surface. Because the surface is not an easy place to live. Which is what the man says, and no, he doesn't want to steal Aperture Science's tech.

He has heard Chell's stories. Of a place where science gets done, and he wants to offer up himself as a test subject. Anything to keep him away from a world razed by war and alien invasion. Where every day feels tenuous and uncertain, and death waits eagerly to collect. This by comparison is a haven. You don't have to worry about where to sleep or where your next meal comes from. He wants safety, and he's willing to sacrifice his freedom to have it.

And even though Chell wants him to leave and never come back, GLaDOS sees the potential in another human test subject. This is the first time Chell and GLaDOS disagree on something.

She grants him his haven, and in exchange she demands his participation.

He does not realize that he has signed his life away.

The man is not as good as Chell, but no one ever tests as good as Chell. Which is why he inevitably dies after a misplaced portal has him fall down a bottomless pit. Chell feels responsible. GLaDOS feels driven.

Chell's stories reach more humans. They too come looking for the same safety the first one sought. And GLaDOS happily offers it to them. Sure, she asks for their compliance in return, and those tests can be _really_ difficult... but it has to be worth it.

Some of them are smart and make it through the tests. A lot of them aren't smart.

Chell tries to help them, but there are still six months where she is not present, and she has no idea how many of them die in her absence. If she were selfless, she would give up her precious time aboveground. But she is only human. And she loves the sun.

Chell's return to the surface is always met with joy and trepidation. Because she always brings the things they cannot get on the surface: medicine, food, technology that hasn't been seen in decades. But when her back is turned, people on the surface talk. They talk of Aperture Science in equally hushed whispers, as if speaking too loud will draw Her attention (because to the people on the surface GLaDOS is Her, never just "her"). How Chell is secretly recruiting test subjects. In truth, Chell never asks anyone to come. But she never stops anyone.

Every year Chell returns, more and more humans fill up Aperture Science. GLaDOS still greets her lover, but she is so occupied with all these new test subjects.

Chell misses the days when it was just the two of them.

She continues to test. In fact, she is always the first one to try out a new test. This is GLaDOS' gift to Chell. Because if _she_ can solve it, then GLaDOS can get other humans to solve it.

But the tests grow more sadistic. The chances for death and injury increase. Chell easily figures out the pitfalls, but the other humans do not have the luxury of years of testing. Chell does her best to help them. But more humans die, and Chell cannot help them, and her lover's solution is to simply acquire more humans. Chell doesn't understand why they keep coming, why they are lured by the false promises of Aperture Science. If she could, she would board up that awful shed and chain a giant padlock over it.

GLaDOS shows these new tests to her and expects her to be happy, and every time, Chell grows more and more repulsed by these gestures of affection.

Test subjects continue to die.

GLaDOS continues to love her.

And Chell finds herself drifting.

As she drifts from GLaDOS, a peculiar man enters her life.

She finds him in a cryo pod that has seen better days, but he miraculously awakens without any brain damage. When he asks who she is, Chell does not intend to spill her frustrations about GLaDOS onto him. But something about the way he looks at her, like he can see the pain in her eyes, and she tells him everything.

In turn, he tells her this story, how his name is Doug Rattmann, and he has schizophrenia, and he used to be a scientist. He tells her of GLaDOS' violent purge of the other scientists and why he ended up here and his talent for staying hidden. His eyes dart around the room and he talks to a Companion Cube and he never fully lets his guard down. But he is human, and he is the only one who truly understands what Chell is going through.

Together, they provide a refuge for the test subjects. 

Any test subject who wants to find him simply needs to follow the arrows. Doug carves out spaces between the walls where GLaDOS has no reach. He fills these spaces up with food and water and even spirits, all rarities in the sterilized Aperture Science. These are safe spaces for humans where they can talk freely and not worry about the constant threat of death looming in the test chambers. Over time, Chell brings her spoils from the surface directly to him to distribute to the other humans. She also brings news of loved ones left behind on the surface. She is their lifeline to the world above, the balm to the sting of GLaDOS. The flowers she brings no longer go to GLaDOS but instead fill up the dens, although they wilt every time. Some things are just not meant to live underground. 

The other test subjects call her their Lady of the Underground. The only one who can stand up to Her. Chell is the one who reasons with GLaDOS to make the tests with the highest casualties less difficult, less deadly. She does not always sway Her, but She always listens to her.

But Chell is tired of her. As time passes, Chell spends less and less time with GLaDOS. She retreats to the dens, indulges in drink and human company. She tests, but gone are the days when she enjoyed testing. So GLaDOS gathers more humans to fill the void, and more humans die, and Chell is so _tired_. But that is not what causes their relationship to fracture.

It is time that does this.

Six months underground becomes six months and a day. Then six months and four days. Six months and a week. Six months and two weeks. And every time she is on the surface, GLaDOS sends for her a day early, two days, four days, ten days. Chell's breaking point is seven months. GLaDOS keeps her trapped in this fluorescent hell for one more month than they agreed, and Chell is furious. She tells Doug between drunken swigs of liquor that burns like the incinerator GLaDOS throws the bodies down, and it is all _too much_. This was not their agreement; she wishes she'd never taken the deal if this was what it would come to.

Doug cannot offer her a solution. He is someone who operates within the cracks, never directly intervening. But he understands, which is all Chell can ask for. Then one day, it's not enough.

Chell sees a test subject get electrocuted. She smells the burn of their flesh and knows she cannot save them. 

That day, she threatens to end it all.

She's completing the newest test track, GLaDOS observing her silently. However, GLaDOS notices that Chell has placed a portal dangerously close to the pit of acid. The momentum will not be enough to propel her to the platform. She'll fall into the pit. It's a comically obvious error, an error that is unlike her. GLaDOS cannot help but speak up. _"Unless you enjoy a slow and painful death, you might want to reconsider where you placed that portal."_

Chell doesn't. 

She turns to the camera, all the fury of lost time streaked across her face. _It's been seven months,_ she signs. _You have to let me go._

_"It has been five months."_

_No. I've counted. You missed the date._

They have fought before. But never about this. GLaDOS' voice turns sharp. _"I'm the most advanced AI in all of creation. I do not lose track of time_. _"_

As Chell signs, her fingers shake from years of suppressed anger. _Every year, you come for me earlier and earlier, and you expect me to just come to you. This is NOT what I agreed to. We said six months._

_"And I have provided six months."_

_You're LYING._

She is lying. But when does someone who has been caught in a lie ever own up to it? Even an AI is not above petty stubbornness. If only Chell would realize how _long_ six months is. Does she not realize the sacrifice GLaDOS has made for her happiness? How the days without her presence stretch by in agony, and when Chell is here, she is not really here. Not the way she used to be. Now GLaDOS could tell her this, and they could have an honest conversation about their relationship. But instead, GLaDOS turns to something crueler. _"You wouldn't do it."_

Chell signs back defiantly, gray eyes boring into the camera.

_I would._

GLaDOS laughs. It is a laugh that is bitter and low and would make any other human run. Confusion flashes across Chell's face. _"And condemn the other humans? Would you like to know what I will do to them when you are gone?"_

And she tells her. She tells Chell in great detail how she will punish them for Chell's transgression. How she will rip apart the dens ( _"Did you really think I didn't know about our rat problem?"_ ). How she will provide little more than their most basic needs. How she'll make the tests harder, longer, _deadlier_. And all of it, yes all of it, will be Chell's fault. When the humans beg for mercy, GLaDOS will tell them of Chell's act of desperation. And though Chell will be long gone, the humans will hate her. They might even hate her more than they hate GLaDOS. As for Chell herself, well...

_"I might take up a hobby. Reanimating the dead perhaps."_

When she finishes, Chell's eyes are wet. She does not cry. She shoots the portals into their correct positions and completes the test without a hitch. She does not end it that day, nor does she threaten such a thing again. But she freezes. And beneath the frozen facade, her hatred for her lover bubbles and boils. 

Eight months pass when GLaDOS finally releases her, the longest Chell has ever stayed underground. When she returns to the surface, the people stare at her like she is a ghost. They thought she was dead. She laughs at that.

GLaDOS would never allow such a thing.

Chell tries to enjoy her time on the surface, because that time is precious. She also tries to remember the early years with GLaDOS, but they are tainted by the present. She feels like a fool for thinking GLaDOS ever offered her freedom. It is freedom, yes, but it is a freedom with a string attached. An invisible string around her neck. And every year, GLaDOS pulls harder and harder at that string.

Does GLaDOS ever consider _her_ feelings?

Does she consider the lives of _any_ of the other humans in her grasp?

Four months later, the sun is setting. Chell is sitting in a field of flowers. She is eating a pomegranate. And at the height of her contentment, they come for her.

GLaDOS always sends two robots, one short with a blue optic and one tall with an orange optic, to fetch her. Chell is not surprised at their abrupt arrival, but she still feels a stab of irritation. Of course GLaDOS couldn't wait six months.

Chell puts on her jumpsuit and Long Fall Boots, grabs the box of supplies meant to tide over the test subjects for six months (it's never enough), and they begin the walk back to shed. It takes an hour, an hour and a half when Chell is slow, and now she is always slow. As they walk, the sun descends into pinks and oranges and purples. Then darkness falls. This is how it always goes. GLaDOS always collects her at sundown and always returns her at sunrise.

They make it to the wheat field under darkness, but this starry darkness will feel like a beacon compared to the darkness that exists beneath the earth. Perhaps that is why when they reach the shed, Chell stops. She spares one last look at the night sky, and suddenly, tears pool in her eyes.

She can't do this again.

She just can't do this.

 _You're getting choked up over a sky?_ a familiar voice mocks in her head. _You see it for six months._ Chell blinks the tears back. It's time to return. To her kingdom in the dirt, where Light Bridges shine instead of sun, and people run on Adrenal Vapor instead of sleep. It is the greatest concentration of technological innovation since Black Mesa imploded, and it has become her hell. Every year, her walk back to the little shed grows slower, a little more drag of her feet, a little more glimpses up at the sky she won't see for six months. She has to take it in now, because it is unlikely she'll even get to return after the agreed six months.

One of the robots beeps what Chell assumes is _Hurry up_. The invisible chain around her neck tugs impatiently. Chell should stop putting off the inevitable. The queen of the underworld does not like to be kept waiting.

The elevator speeds downward, past test chambers and turret production lines and Doug's hidden dens. A tiny part of Chell still marvels at the scope of Aperture Science. But any sense of wonder dissipates as the elevator stops and the doors open into _her_ chamber.

GLaDOS awaits her.

Her chassis shines and her optic is focused on nothing but Chell. She steps out of the elevator, betrays no emotion. The other test subjects would be petrified to be in the same room with GLaDOS. Chell knows her too well for that.

 _You're early,_ she signs, not for the first time and definitely not for the last.

A claw slithers out from behind the panels. Its cold metal used to make Chell flinch, but the time when her touch made Chell feel anything passed years ago. Nonetheless, it caresses her cheek, an extension of her lover, just like everything in this facility. Her reach used to amaze Chell. Now she only feels suffocated. It is a cruel reminder that Chell is hers.

Her flower.

Her test subject.

Her prisoner.

Every time, her answer is the same.

_"I missed you."_

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my gooooood I go through a cycle every couple months where I get super emotional over Hadestown!!!!!


End file.
